Admitted students typically received tuition remission credits and a monthly stipend as a TA or RA Tuition Remission (TR) as a form of financial aid that defrays the tuition costs of taking graduate courses at Boston College. Most graduate students receive enough tuition remission credits to complete required graduate student coursework at no cost to them as long as they are in good standing within the program. A Teaching Assistantship (TA) is a form of financial aid where a student is paid a regular stipend to help a professor teach a course in the department. A Research Assistantship (RA) is a form of financial aid where a student is paid a regular stipend to help a professor conduct research. TA and RA stipends are normally sufficient to pay routine living expenses.

Students are encouraged to contact department faculty members during the application process to explore opportunities for thesis research projects. Students are admitted to the graduate program without an assigned thesis advisor and students determine their thesis topic and thesis advisor, with his or her approval, when they start the graduate program.

The M.S. graduate program in the E&ES department is designed so all course requirements and the oral comprehensive exam can be completed in four academic semesters. The time for completing the M.S. thesis can vary widely from student-to-student depending on the capabilities of the student, the complexity of the research project, the logistics of the research, and other unpredictable factors that can crop up when scientific research is carried out. The BC Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) dictates that graduate students have five years from the start of their graduate program to complete their M.S. degree.

The timeline for the decision process can be variable year to year and applicant to applicant, but final decisions are typically made by mid-March. Applications received on January 10 will be reviewed by the end of the month. Feel free to inquire about the status of your application if you have not received any communication by mid-February, especially if you find yourself in a time sensitive situation.

Our alumni are very successful in obtaining employment within their areas of interest upon graduation in the Boston area, across the country, and abroad. Alumni have found placement in non-profits, consulting, oil and gas, research, and education at companies such as, NASA, the World Wildlife Fund, Hess, Exxon, Shell, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Students have also gone on to pursue Ph.D's at schools such as Louisiana State University, University of Memphis, University of Texas at Austin, University of Kansas, University of Delaware, and the Colorado School of Mines.